The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal was signed by New Zealand trade minister Todd McClay recently in Auckland, putting the TPP a step closer to becoming a reality. The deal has been signed by ministers of all 12 member countries and will now need to be ratified by each member country’s lawmakers, BBC reports.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal is one of the biggest deals to have been to have been proposed in the past few years. It is a deal between 12 countries of the world, namely USA, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Chile, Mexico, Canada, Brunei, and Peru, which account for 40% of the world’s economy. The deal is an initiative between the member nations to facilitate free trade among them, becoming a bigger version of the EU single market.